With Brown out, Burns becomes third-string QB for Maryland

I wanted to post more from Coach Ralph Friedgen’s Sunday teleconference:

The quarterback situation will be a focus all week, and we will get to it in the coming days. Overall, Friedgen said he was “not displeased” with the performance of starter Jamarr Robinson, who threw two touchdown passes and one interception. Friedgen said backup Danny O’Brien made some mistakes as well, even though he threw three touchdown passes in his first four pass attempts of his career. Friedgen acknowledged that O’Brien gave the team a spark and said “we’ve got two good quarterbacks and that should make us stronger." Freshman Devin Burns will now be the third-string quarterback in place of C.J. Brown, who is expected to be out eight weeks with a broken collarbone.

Defensive end Marcus Whitfield will undergo an MRI on Monday to reveal the extent of damage to his knee. What Friedgen knows it that Whitfield dislocated his patella and also hurt his MCL. If it’s just an MCL injury, he’ll be out no more than four weeks, Friedgen feels. But if the ligament behind the patella (kneecap) is torn, then that’s a lot more serious.

Tight end Will Yeatman (broken finger) will return to practice this week and may be able to play at West Virginia. He may need to wear a cast on his hand, which would make it impossible for him to catch passes. But he can still block.

Friedgen watched West Virginia’s comeback over Marshall on Friday night and watched some tape of the Mountaineers again Sunday before he got on the phone with reporters. “I know they will be ready to play us,” Friedgen said. “Not sure if we will see the same team that I saw Friday. We will learn a little more about who we are. It would give us tremendous confidence the rest of the season [if Maryland wins].”

Regarding the second-team offensive lineman, Friedgen liked the play of right guard and center Bennett Fulper and right tackle Pete DeSouza. Freshman defensive back Desmond Kearse also impressed. He rushed the passer well and broke up screen passes. “We will be playing him a lot,” Friedgen said. “He is very quick off the edge, rubbery. He has a way of making people miss.”

Friedgen also said the team needs to work of reducing penalties. I’ll say this: If not for 110 yards in penalty yards, Maryland would have really short-circuited the Byrd Stadium scoreboard.

We encourage users to analyze, comment on and even challenge washingtonpost.com's articles, blogs, reviews and multimedia features.

User reviews and comments that include profanity or personal attacks or other inappropriate comments or material will be removed from the site. Additionally, entries that are unsigned or contain "signatures" by someone other than the actual author will be removed. Finally, we will take steps to block users who violate any of our posting standards, terms of use or privacy policies or any other policies governing this site. Please review the full rules governing commentaries and discussions.